Spirituality with a smile

Posts from October 2008

October 20, 2008

I'm always interested to check my Stats and see what people who come to my blog have been searching for. Sometimes, I'm afraid to say, it's clear that it's all been a terrible waste of time. I can only send apologies to those who were lured to my earlier post on The Taste of Tomatoes in search of gardening tips - and to those who ended up at my recent offering, Between One Moment And The Next, in a futile search for details of camp sites in the north of England. As to those come searching for something closer to what I'm really on about here, I always hope that they find something really useful here at my blog - but I rarely have chance to find out. It's usually my fellow bloggers and a few friends who leave comments - Googlers rarely do, and my Stats don't provide me with any contact details so that I can get in touch with these people to say "Hi!" This is all well and good, of course - from a data control and privacy point of view - but just occasionally I'd really like to know.

The other day, for instance, someone came here after a Google search for "what Eckhart Tolle says about worry" and I really hope they found what they were looking for, because what Eckhart says about worry is one of the most liberating things I've ever learned from him. I did cover the subject in my earlier post Making Plans, but the 'worry' bit wasn't exactly headlined so they may have missed it.

Never mind: better late then never. So - ta da! - here is my official "what Eckhart Tolle says about worry" post, specially for the next person who comes searching for this on Google - and for you, of course, especially if you've been feeling the burden of these uncertain times.

The gist of what Eckhart says - and pay attention here, because this could change your life - is that worry isn't important. Worry seems to be important but it really isn't! Worry serves no purpose whatsoever, so you may as well just forget all about it. Seriously.

Does that make you feel better? It certainly makes mefeel better. I've spent my life feeling that when I have a problem looming, I have to worry about it. I have a duty to worry about it. If I don't worry, I am being irresponsible.

In actual fact, the opposite is true. You have a duty not to worry. You have a duty to lift that burden from your shoulders and focus on enjoying your life instead.

So allow that burden to lift right now! Does that feel better? And this is the way you can live your life from now on...

This doesn't mean to say that you don't have to deal with any problem which may come along. You still have to do whatever may be needed. But you don't have to worry yourself sick about it!

All you have to do is to ask yourself if there's anything you can do about the problem. If there's no action you can take, that's it. Put it out of your mind. Worrying won't serve any purpose. And what you have to remember is that you have a responsibility not to worry. Why? Because worrying will sap your energy. When this impending catastrophe happens (which, by the way, it probably won't) you will be far better able to deal with the aftermath if you haven't worn yourself out with worry in the meantime.

On other occasions, there will be something you can do about the problem. If you need to take action right now, that's simple enough. Just get on with it! Then worry won't get a look in, because you'll be too busy doing. You'll be in the moment instead of in your head.

If however, the problem is less urgent, than the best thing to do is to allocate an appropriate time to decide what action to take. This may be right now, or later today or, if things are less pressing, it may be a week on Tuesday. Until then, you can turn your attention with an easy mind to the other things in your life, whether they be duties or pleasures, all in the safe knowledge that you are not shirking your responsibilities with this worry holiday of yours. Quite the opposite. Because the only thing that worry achieves is to sap your precious energy.

And if you're still not convinced that you don't need to worry, here's something else to consider.

It seems that your subconscious mind has more resources than your conscious one. This means that it will probably arrive at an effortless solution to your problem while you're busy focusing on, say, the gardening or watching a movie. So, when a week on Tuesday finally arrives and you sit down with a pen and paper to think things through, you may discover that the problem is already solved. We're very good at working things out on auto-pilot... as long as we don't allow worry to get in the way.

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A few useful links:

I covered some other aspects of this subject in my earlier post, Making Plans.

October 07, 2008

What can we learn from the current precarious state of the world's financial systems?

A lot of us seem to have taken the lesson that greed doesn't pay. It didn't do the banks any good to try to make lots of money by offering their customers loans which they couldn't afford to repay. Nor was it good for those of us who took them up on those offers.

The situation could also be seen as a text book example of the law of attraction in action. While financial mismanagement lies at the heart of the crisis, the resulting loss of confidence is making it so much worse. People are selling shares because they are afraid that their value is falling, and this in turn is driving down the price. People are attracting the very thing which they fear.

But perhaps there is another yet more important lesson to learn.

About a year ago, I wrote on this blog about the importance of us coming to think of ourselves an integral part of the human race, rather than caring mainly about ourselves and our own selfish needs. Only then, I argued, could we work together to find our way out of the mess we're in.

At the time, I was thinking about the environment, war, terrorism, inequality: all the factors we've come to equate with the state of the world. It hadn't occurred to me that the thing which might actually start to bring us together would be a banking crisis. And yet that is what seems to have happened.

It was interesting to watch the rocky passage of the US government's banking rescue package through the House of Representatives. On the first occasion, they threw it out because they wanted to punish the bankers. But the second time, the bill passed because the truth had finally dawned: people couldn't punish the bankers without also punishing themselves. If the banks went down, then so would the whole economy. We were all in this together. Doh!

And perhaps a lot of people also realized that it wasn't just the banks that had caused this mass. They couldn't have done it without the compliance of those of us who took them up on the reckless offers they made. The public wanted to blame the bankers, but the truth was that once again, we were all in this together.

Perhaps the most unusual and abiding image of the crisis has been the sight of Republicans and Democrats sitting down together to try to work things out. It seems that the more serious things get, the more inclined we are to find common ground.

Over here in the UK, where - as in so may other countries - a similar financial drama has played out, there have also been signs of a coming together of opposing political parties, with the opposition pledging support for the government's efforts to stop things falling apart entirely.

Europe-wide, there have also been efforts at unity, though this has been less successful, with governments pledging to work together on Sunday, then going their own separate ways the following day. The resulting uncertainty has had a disastrous effect on the markets, another reminder that we all have to work together on this if we're going to make it through.

In the previous post, I also mentioned 2012, the year when many of us new-agey type people believe that the world will change, when the global shift in consciousness I've mentioned will come into being: when we will all come to think of ourselves as a part of the whole, rather than as individuals battling for survival. Can this really come about? Some people are saying that we're fooling ourselves to think it can happen in only four years time, while others are claiming that it's already begun.

Well, I don't know the truth of it, to be honest, but it seems to me that the financial crisis is providing an example of how it might actually come about. What if the financial systems do fall apart? What then?

On a personal level, it seems that spiritual transformation often occurs when things get so bad that you 'can't stand it any more'. Such transformation comes about through crisis. So could something similar happen on a global level? The more serious things get, the more we pull together... But what would have to happen to really make a difference? Just how bad would it have to get?

I used to joke that the only thing which could unite the human race would be an invasion of extra-terrestrials. But perhaps our salvation when it comes could be something just as unexpected, yet rather more mundane...

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Some Favorite Quotes

"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone like us to come along - people who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. It is overwhelming to consider the numerous opportunities there are to make our love felt." - Leo Bascaglia

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Sir Winston Churchill

"My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened." - Michel de Montaigne

"Take any fear. Call it out. Actually make an appointment: I'll meet you face to face to get this settled once and for all at 'such-n-such' time. Tell it you'll even meet it in its own space: a dark room. And you'll find nothing will ever come to meet you..." - Sue Ann Edwards

"Your mind is the interference to experiencing the bliss of this moment." - Dr Joe Vitale

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive." - Albert Einstein